There should be a mathematical relationship describing the tendency of someone to spend a great deal of time online as a function of whether the person is dating someone or not. I notice I have more online "friends" that talk to me almost all day when they're single and then not at all when some new flame comes into their life and fires them up. I guess people use the internet as a way of connecting to people when they have not much else to do. This is why I don't rely too heavily on any online conversations I have with people because they're so different than real life. It just kind of makes me mad because I try to be the same online all the time and a lot of people put on different faces depending on what's going on in their life or depending on what sort of image they're trying to convey. I really hate msn and other online chatting things so much, but I still can't do without it since so many people I would not be able to have contact with if it weren't for the internet. I guess it's my iron lung in a way. Something you absolutely despise but, because of situational circumstances, you have to keep it around and it sort of keeps you going. Patients on an iron lung hate it because it confines them to a room, limits what they can do and figuratively and literally weighs them down, but if it weren't for that enormously complex breathing apparatus they'd be dead. Same with radiohead's song my Iron Lung, about their other song Creep. Look into it.